Turkish Kickboxing Federation has organised seminar for Coaches and Referees which took place between December 07 – 09, 2018 in Antalya, Turkey. Seminar was attended by 1150 Coaches and Referees in total. The program started with the opening remarks of Mr. Salim KAYICI, the President of Turkish Kickboxing Federation and WAKO Europe Vice-President. Following Mr. KAYICI, WAKO Europe President Mr. Roy BAKER and WAKO IF Vice-President Mr. Espen LUND addressed the attendants. After their remarks, chairman of WAKO Europe Referee

Committee for tatami spots Mr. Brian W. BECK and the chairman of WAKO Europe Referee Committee for ring sports, Mr. Sami SAVO presented the general competition rules and the recently changed rules. The attendants were also given seminars on banned substances, substance abuse, anti-doping and fight against drugs.

Seminar was also conducted for development of tatami disciplines and it was run by Mr. Roy Baker, former multiple World Champion for Point Fighting and Mr. Tomaz Barada, WAKO Europe Board member and former multiple World Champion, for Light Contact. Big WAKO family on one place had a pleasure to celebrate WAKO recognition by IOC.

Best Regards, SALIM KAYICI President of Turkish Kickboxing Federation WAKO EUROPE VICE PRESIDENT

It is with great pride, as the Interim President of WAKO, to hereby announce the best message for the WAKO family ever.

WAKO has been granted today with IOC’s provisional recognition.

The decision was taken by the IOC Executive Board in Tokyo Japan on 30th November 2018 upon the IOC Sports Department’s recommendation.

WAKO has experienced a massive development in the last years and we really feel we all collectively deserve such recognition. All our Hard work, focused attention on development, patience and a dedicated and competent team has finally paid off. When everything is settled it is time to reach for new and higher goals.

Please take this special moment to reflect on how far we have come, but more importantly how far we have to go. To finally achieve this goal is the end of a long but constructive and developing marathon, even though such recognition will lead to obligations for us to follow up and develop.

Since our application was delivered in August 2016, we have seen a great positive and constructive contribution from many people. In acknowledgement of the work, I thank everybody involved, and in particular the International Relations team who constructed the application and lead all the discussions with the IOC: Espen Lund, Chairman, Roy Baker and our former President Borislav Pelevic; tank you also to WAKO Administration and the Legal Committee. All undertook a huge task for our sport and delivered. Bravo to everybody in WAKO, what a fantastic day for our sport! This will have a positive and dramatic effect on our sport in all five Continents.

It is also important to dedicate this recognition to Borislav Pelevic that supported and approved all the work done. Not to say to Ennio Falsoni that founded the WAKO we see today.

We know that such recognition will be very important for the recognition and support for all our national members. We will come back with more specific information about this issue, its consequences and its impact. Congratulations to the WAKO family!

All official results, medals table, partcipation count and statistics of the WAKO Senior European Championships for the disciplines Point Fighting, Light Contact, Full Contact and Musical Forms, held in Maribor (Slovenia), from 17th to 25th November 2018, can be found on www.sportdata.org and here listed below.

ATTENTION:Following WAKO rules and regulations the eligibility for the participation is reserved only to WAKO national Federation/Association members.

Please take note that we are still waiting for further information/updates from WAKO Continental Divisions about events to be held in 2019, so accordimgly as soon as received the calendar will be updated accordingly. However in the meantime, based on this calendar, you can start to plan your activities for next year!

It is with great sadness and pain, I inform you that in the early hours today Thursday 25th October our president Prof. Borislav Pelevic, died, suddenly at home, in Belgrade Serbia. Firstly and most importantly my thoughts and prayers are with his family as are yours.

A true leader in our sport, he was born on 22nd November 1956, a professor of Sport Administration and an active professor in Belgrade University. He was former president of the nationalist Party of Serbian Unity and a member of the Serbian Parliament.

The President as most of us know, had triple bypass surgery in April and was recovering well, but on significant medication and his health was growing. Yet less than three weeks after that he was at the SportAccord Convention in Bangkok, his commitment to the ongoing development in our sport was inspirational. He ALWAYS put the sport first.

He was founder and president of the Serbian Kickboxing federation and brought the sport to this country. He was a WAKO IF board member and elected to the presidency of WAKO in 2015.

I, We on the board and you our members, have lost a very close and dear friend, somebody that had a passion and drive for life. He will be missed. Funeral arrangements will beforwarded at a later date.